


a wonderful bird is the pelican

by Snickfic



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (but only of fish), Animal Traits, Belly Kink, Feelings, Kink Exploration, Light Angst, M/M, Shame/Comfort, Vore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:38:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: Geno being a little wild didn’t matter much, as far as Sid could tell. The pinfeathers came out sometimes when Geno was either very relaxed or feeling something very strongly, which was to say there were a lot of photos of Geno on the ice looking not quite entirely human, but it didn’t seem to affect his play. He ate a lot of fish, but that was a good protein source, so Sid didn’t see a problem.Some of the other guys were kind of weird about it, though.





	a wonderful bird is the pelican

**Author's Note:**

> Title courtesy NOT of Ogden Nash, as I'd always heard, but of [Dixon Lanier Merritt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixon_Lanier_Merritt).
> 
> Fic courtesy of [the time Anna told Geno he looked like a pelican](https://www.instagram.com/p/BBjCFBHBSFM/?taken-by=anna_kasterova). (Also [here](https://snickfic.dreamwidth.org/file/7981.jpg).)

Sometimes, Geno grew pinfeathers down his arms and the nape of his neck. He said if he left them alone long enough they’d mature into full-size feathers, but Sid had never seen that. Sometimes Geno’s nose and jaw got pointier and closer together and started to turn hard: beaklike, but not quite a beak. Geno hated the cold and loved the beach and loved swimming most of all, and probably some of that was just him, just those human quirks and preferences everyone had. (Sid had maybe more than most people. He could admit it.)

But some of it, like the feathers and the beak, was because Geno was a little bit pelican. But only a little bit. 

“It’s a relationship that transfers some of the species’ characteristics to the person,” said the guy who did the training session, Sid’s second year. The guy never mentioned Geno, but everyone knew that was why he was here. There hadn’t been a wildling on the Pens in five years, before Geno. Sid snuck a peek at him, lounging at the back of the video room with Gonch. Their heads were bent together, but Geno didn’t look pissed, and Sid wondered if that meant they were talking about the power play or dinner or something instead of the presentation.

When the presentation was over and the trainer was gone, a few guys got up the nerve to approach Gonch and Geno with questions. Gonch’s face was pinched. He translated to Geno, who peered at the floor like he wasn’t even listening. Finally Geno shrugged and said something back, much shorter than Gonch’s questions. “He says they’re family,” Gonch said, and that was that.

Geno being a little wild didn’t matter much, as far as Sid could tell. The pinfeathers came out sometimes when Geno was either very relaxed or feeling something very strongly, which was to say there were a lot of photos of Geno on the ice looking not quite entirely human, but it didn’t seem to affect his play. He ate a lot of fish, but that was a good protein source, so Sid didn’t see a problem.

Some of the other guys were kind of weird about it, though.

“What about the full moon? Can you turn all the way into a pelican then?”

Geno stared mulishly across the locker room with that particular glare that meant he’d magically forgotten the entire English language. 

“Give it a rest, guys,” Sid said.

“I just want to know,” Talbo said. “Just curious. Trying to have some fucking cultural exchange, you know?”

“Fuck off, Talbo,” Billy G said from the corner. He didn’t look up, just kept loosening his skate laces. Talbo made a face at him and wandered off without further comment.

\--

So Geno was kind of a pelican, part-time, but a hockey player all the time with a scoring touch that made Sid weak in the knees, and that was really the important part. The scoring touch, not Sid’s knees. And that was just how it was for years, through a Cup win (Geno spent the entire party in the pool until his feet were webbed and his arms really did look more like wings, and he splashed every single person who stepped within ten feet) and Sid’s concussion (Geno spent more time at Sid’s house than his own once he busted his knee, and after a month Sid started finding feathers in the couch cushions, even though he never saw any _on_ Geno).

Then Geno kissed Sid in a bar after a pretty ordinary early-season win in Brooklyn. “Geno,” Sid breathed. 

Geno didn’t meet his eyes. He shifted his weight as though planning to edge out of this dark corner he’d somehow herded Sid into. Sid caught his hand—his big, wonderful hand with such long fingers. Their length was something to do with wings, Sid had decided years ago, the way bird fingers had evolved to support the whole wing structure. He rubbed his thumb in the center of Geno’s palm. Slowly the tension in Geno’s shoulders eased. “Why now?” Sid asked.

Geno shrugged. “Seem like good time.”

Sid couldn’t argue with that. He tugged Geno down and kissed him for real. Under his hand, the back of Geno’s neck was stubbly with feathers.

Geno’s life seemed to shift into Sid’s house without much comment. It was pretty great. And aside from the occasional down feather drifting out of thin air into Sid’s protein shake, or the way Geno had a thing for standing barefoot in the back yard when it rained, Sid mostly forgot there was anything wild about Geno at all.

Mostly.

“So do you eat like a pelican?” one of the young guys asked. A bit of a northeastern accent—Sheary, maybe? Usually the young guys were too much in awe of Geno to bother him, but maybe all coming up from Wilkes-Barre together made this group bolder.

“What, like you eat like monkey?” Geno asked. His tone said he’d tolerate this line of questioning, but only for a very limited time.

“No, I mean like. Whole. A whole fish.”

Sid turned around finally to give the kid a withering look, which was often all it took, but he caught Geno’s eye first, and Geno stared back, frozen. Caught out, like he did when Sid called him on bullshit Geno had been certain he’d sold. His bullshit about—eating fish?

It took Sid a moment to get his mouth working again. “Geno, don’t we have a fine for asking personal questions?”

Geno perked up. “Oh, yes, fifty bucks.”

“What?” Sheary squawked, although it looked mostly for show. 

“You too nosy, get in other guys’ business, it’s fifty bucks.”

“Fuck,” Sheary said. “Fine.”

Bryan Rust started ribbing him, and other guys joined in, but Sid was still stuck on Geno, studiously attending to his skate laces and ignoring everyone. 

“What was that about?” Sid asked later, in his kitchen, while he diced chicken breasts and Geno lounged at the kitchen table with a beer.

“What’s what?”

“With Sheary. When he asked how you ate.”

Geno peered at Sid’s wall calendar like it was excessively interesting, although now that Sid was looking at it too, he noticed the page was two months old. He always forgot to switch it over; if his parents didn’t come visit for a while, the page stayed unturned. “You see me eat lots of times,” Geno said finally.

Sid should just drop it. “Then why are you being weird?”

“You weird,” Geno said, because he learned how to argue on the playground and pretty much stopped there. Sid wasn’t getting any further with him when he was like this. Reluctantly Sid dropped the subject.

He tried it again a few days later. Did Geno like to swim because of the pelican thing? Was that why he liked Miami so much? And sushi?

“Pelican don’t mean anything,” Geno said, past mulish and on his way to pissed off. “I’m just person like you. Play hockey. Like Miami because _warm_ , now fuck off.”

“Fine,” Sid said, stung and angry and—once he stewed long enough to admit it—kind of hurt.

That night Sid received possibly the most conscientiously thorough blowjob he’d ever gotten in his life. He collapsed afterwards, breath still heaving, his muscles all made of pudding. Geno crawled up onto the bed and pressed himself to Sid’s side. “I’m sorry, Sid.”

Sid grunted. After a while, Geno’s words came together in his head. “For what?”

“Bite your head off today.” Geno’s hand strayed slowly down Sid’s chest. “Sorry I get piss off.”

Sid squeezed Geno’s hand. “It’s okay,” he said, and told himself that it was. He knew Geno was a little sensitive about this shit. He shouldn’t have pushed so hard.

\--

They won the Cup again. Geno spent the whole party in the pool again, terrorizing any drunk rookie who wandered too close. The next morning, when Sid and Geno woke up and found themselves somewhat nearer the land of sobriety, Sid said, “You wanna come to Cole Harbour this summer?”

Geno hummed. “Fishing?”

“We can fish all you want. Nothing but fishing for a week.” Or longer, if Sid could persuade Geno to stay.

“Maybe fucking, too? Fish and fuck, nothing else.”

That sounded pretty great to Sid.

\--

Sid was giddy all the way to the airport. The giddiness hung around while he waited at baggage claim. It took approximately a million years for Geno to walk down the hallway from security, and it was all Sid could do not to kiss him on the spot. “Hi,” Sid said instead, beaming so wide that he probably should have just gone ahead with the kiss.

“Hi, Sid,” Geno said, smiling back just as bright. “Take me home?”

Sid pointed out the sights along the way from Halifax. There was the convenience store where his mom used to take him for ice cream when he was little; there was the swimming hole cordoned off from the lake, where people still swam in the summer. “Nice water,” Geno said approvingly. He would.

“I live on a lake, you know,” Sid said. Possibly he’d mentioned it a couple of times already. 

Geno gave him a fond look. “You know, even you live in desert I come visit.”

“I know,” Sid said quickly, even though maybe, very deep in his gut, he didn’t yet. But he was trying. “I’m just saying, lots of space to spread your wings.”

“Yes,” Geno said, looking out the passenger window. Slivers of lake sparkled through the red maples. “Is look very nice.”

Sid couldn’t help feeling a little gratified at that.

Geno surveyed the house with the same affable, approving eye—at least until he saw Sid’s coffee maker. “I think you know better than this. Why you bring in house, ruin good hot water?” He scowled ferociously at it, maybe two-thirds serious, and Sid’s fondness was like a balloon in his chest, expanding more all the time.

They fucked that night with the window open. Afterward, Sid lay panting with his head pillowed on Geno’s bicep, a cool breeze blowing in off the lake. Frogs croaked in chorus. After a while Sid shifted onto his side and petted the stubbly pinfeathers that had sprouted along Geno’s treasure trail. 

“Tomorrow we’ll go fishing,” Sid promised. Today there hadn’t been time, between getting groceries and grilling and fucking. This time, on the bed, was not their first go-round of the day. Or the second.

Geno’s hand landed on Sid’s head. He scrunched at Sid’s hair, like Sid was a cat. “Sound nice.”

It sounded really great. Sid stroked his thumb along the feathers just below Geno’s navel.

\--

The day started a little later than Sid would have planned normally, for a day of fishing, but Geno was difficult enough to drag out of bed before eight on a normal day, much less when he was fucked over by jet lag. But by ten Geno was upright and fed, and the boat was fueled with rods and tackle and the last of Sid’s most recently acquired bucket of worms. The sun was shining, a sign of good things, Sid thought. A good day.

Sid drove the boat out to a cove he liked at this time of day, still shaded a little by the trees on the eastern shore. “Maybe you don’t even need these, huh?” Sid joked as he baited a hook. “You could just dive for the fish.” It took him a moment to realize that Geno hadn’t answered. When he looked over, Geno was staring at his knees. Sid couldn’t begin to make out his expression behind those huge aviators he wore. “Uh, that was a joke? Sorry, uh—sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Geno cast him a sideways glance, nodded, and reached for a worm. Sid wasn’t reassured, but he also didn’t know what he could say that wouldn’t make it worse. 

The fishing wasn’t great. Too many of the fish had been driven to deeper water by the daylight and the sun’s heat. Still, Sid caught a couple of undersized perch. He threw the first one back, and Geno spun to stare at him, his mouth open in disbelief. “Sid! Why you do?” he asked, horrified. 

“It was little,” Sid said, a little bewildered himself. “It wasn’t worth eating, and anyway we want the little ones to grow big and make more. Sustainable fishing, you know?”

Geno stared at him a moment longer, as though Sid had committed some kind of personal betrayal. Finally he hmphed and turned back to his own fishing rod. He didn’t seem to be trying very hard. Sid had to keep telling him when his bait had probably been nibbled off.

At eleven thirty, after Sid had thrown the second small perch back—to Geno’s clear but silent disapproval—Sid said, “Well, we’re not going to have anything to eat for lunch at this rate. Maybe come back in the evening, eh?” 

Geno grunted. He was definitely in a grade-A mood. Sid tried to have patience with those, especially during the season, when Geno pushed himself so hard. But it was Geno’s first full day in Nova Scotia, and either Sid had really colossally fucked up earlier, with the diving comment, or else he’d only fucked up a little bit but Geno had decided to take it to heart anyway. Sid felt a squirmy, pissy sort of despair over both options. He’d wanted this visit to be _nice_. He’d really wanted it a lot.

“Let’s just go back,” Sid said, as though Geno had disagreed with him. “We’re not going to catch anything.” Geno looked out over the water. Sid caught a glimpse of the rough, uneven texture of pinfeathers across the back of Geno’s neck. Fuck. Sid pulled together his fraying nerves. “Or we could stay, if you really want. But we’re going to need sunscreen.”

Geno shook his head. “Go back.”

Well, Sid could have predicted that one any day of the week. Geno really fucking hated sunscreen. He said it fucked up the oils in his feathers, never mind that he didn’t have any most of the time.

It was a quiet boat ride back to the dock. Silently Geno helped Sid tie up the boat and unload all their gear out of it. As Sid climbed out of the boat at last, Geno said, “Sorry for be weird.”

Sid still couldn’t tell if Geno was looking at him from behind those sunglasses. He took a deep breath. “I know you’re upset. Is it—you know I don’t—I didn’t mean to make fun. I know you get a lot of shit about the pelican thing.” Wow, what a gracious way to phrase it. Good work, captain. “I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time.”

“I know,” Geno said. “Sometimes I get weird. Not your fault.” He leaned over and brushed a kiss against Sid’s cheek before heading up the dock towards the house.

\--

Whatever had Geno all twisted up was apparently nothing lunch and a nap couldn’t fix. They ate the last of yesterday’s leftovers on the deck while the sun filtered through the trees. By the time they’d finished, the shore opposite Sid’s place was cast in gold by the setting sun. On this side of the lake, the shadows stretched out well into the water, and where there was shade, there would be fish.

This time Sid and Geno took their gear down to the folding chairs on the dock. Somehow Geno had tangled up his line since they’d gotten back in the afternoon, and of course Sid was the one who untangled it. He wanted to ask how Geno ever managed to catch any fish at all, but that felt a little too close to the joke that had gone awry this morning, and Sid left it unsaid.

They caught fish this time: Sid first, a beautiful speckled trout, then Geno with another, somewhat smaller trout that he insisted was the same size. Back and forth, back and forth, only a few minutes between bites, although they still caught mostly perch. The frogs were out in force again, the lake was relatively empty of boats on this weekday evening, the water was warm enough to wade in without causing a heart attack and the breeze was cool: it was perfect.

They ran out of worms. “Aw, shit,” Sid said, when Geno handed him the empty bucket. “I’ve got some more up at the house. Watch my line, eh?”

“I catch fish on your line, they my fish,” Geno said.

“That’s fair,” Sid said. It did not really sound like Geno was joking.

When Sid got up to the house it took him a couple of tries to remember which fridge he’d left that second little pail of worms in—kitchen, downstairs, outdoor? Just as he found them, Taylor called, and that took him a few more minutes.

Finally he was resupplied and ready to go. He headed back down towards the dock just in time to see Geno stand up, clearly playing a fish on his line. Sid paused just to admire. The outsized proportions of Geno’s ass were just visible under his cargo shorts. The shorts also made it that much more clear that he was _all limbs_ : long arms sharply bent as he did battle with whatever lake monster he’d hooked, knees bent for leverage. He’d taken his baseball cap off at some point, and his hair stuck up every which way. 

Sid was so fucking into him.

As Sid watched, Geno reeled the quarry in at last. Sid had figured the odds of a knot of lake weed were about fifty/fifty, but no, that was definitely a fish—still not quite as big as Sid’s first catch, but probably a healthy two-pounder. Not bad at all.

Just as Sid was going to head down, Geno turned to look at him. Or not at him—at the deck, where he probably expected Sid to come from. Sid had come out the door from the daylight basement instead, and he was halfway down the slope now, still mostly shadowed in the trees. Some instinct kept him from waving.

Geno turned back to the fish. He hung it between his knees as he settled into the lawn chair. He was probably working the hook out, though he was too far away for Sid to see it clearly. It occurred to Sid that he was spying on Geno. Maybe this wasn’t okay. But it didn’t matter; it wasn’t like Geno was going to do anything he didn’t want Sid to see. Of course not.

It didn’t take Geno long to get the hook removed. He set the rod flat on the deck, and he cast one more glance towards the house. Then, his thumb firmly hooked into the gill, he lifted the fish above his head.

Sid couldn’t quite follow what happened next, what anatomical trick Geno pulled, but even at a distance it was clear that his mouth was much larger than it had been, larger even than the fish. Sid watched blankly as Geno dropped the fish—which was _still_ flopping—into his… gullet. Down it went. Then Geno’s mouth retracted or whatever the fuck, and the fish was gone, like it had never been.

Except then Geno rubbed his stomach, slowly, thoughtfully, and Sid couldn’t—he couldn’t, anymore. On shaky legs, he turned around and walked back to the house. It was a seemingly endless trudge that he couldn’t even remember afterward except for the impression that he’d heard Geno calling him, very distantly.

He started on the dishes he and Geno had left sitting next to the sink in their hurry to get down to the lake before the sun sunk too low. Then he scrubbed the sink and countertops, including the one that they hadn’t really used today. He was just pulling the fridge open to see if there was anything that needed cleaning out—which there probably wasn’t, because he’d only been in Cole Harbour a week—when the glass door onto the deck slid open.

“You not come back,” Geno said. He said it cautiously, and Sid knew he knew something was up, because any other time Geno would already be giving him shit about leaving him alone for so long.

“Had some shit to take care of,” Sid said. He closed the fridge door and looked at it

Geno nodded as though this weren’t obviously bullshit. “Everything okay?” he said. He edged a little closer, and Sid was afraid to look at him, because what if his stomach was like. Wriggling.

“We should probably talk about some stuff. About pelicans.”

“Okay,” Geno said softly. No argument, no deflection. That was what finally turned Sid around to look Geno in the eye. Immediately he wanted to look away again. The expressiveness of Geno’s face had always fascinated him. The fascination had, in fact, maybe been a way for Sid to distract himself from the fact that he liked Geno as more than a friend. 

Now that expressiveness was going to do Sid in, because Geno looked so incredibly sad. His shoulders sloped in defeat and he wouldn’t meet Sid’s gaze. Sid felt like his chest was going to cave in, just looking at Geno.

Sid licked his lips. “I saw you.”

“I don’t do anymore,” Geno said promptly, like he’d been practicing.

“Do what, exactly?”

“Eat fish like—like bird. It’s too weird, you don’t like, I don’t do anymore.” Geno addressed this to the floor.

“Okay?” Sid said, wrong-footed and uncertain. He had no experience dealing with this sad, defenseless Geno who didn’t fight back.

“Okay.” Geno nodded. Without ever looking Sid in the eye, he squeezed Sid’s shoulder and walked back out.

Sid tidied the rest of the kitchen in a daze. He took the garbage out, and then he went down to the dock to see if that needed cleaning up, too. It didn’t. Geno had brought everything up to the house. When Sid checked the garage, there was the box of tackle. The poles were slotted into the rod rack, their hooks tucked into the hook holders like Sid liked, even though Geno had said this morning that it was too fussy to bother with. Sid checked the outdoor fridge, and yep, there were the last of the worms.

Geno had taken care of everything.

Sid found Geno in the bedroom, FaceTiming with someone in Russian. Geno hadn’t turned any lights on, and Sid couldn’t make out Geno’s expression when he glanced up. “Sorry,” Sid said. “Sorry, uh, I’ll be downstairs.”

Sid took a beer out onto the deck and did what he should have done months ago: he searched for _pelican wildling_ and started to read. It was maybe an hour later when the screen door slid open behind him. Geno settled into the nearest deck chair. “Get dark,” he said. “What you do out here?”

The last of the twilight was fading, and in a few more minutes, if Sid looked carefully, he’d see the first stars twinkle into view. “Just looking up some stuff on my phone,” Sid said, although he’d let the screen go dark a while ago. “About, uh. You.”

“You watch my goal highlights? Makes sense, you learn lots.”

Sid laughed softly. When he glanced over, Geno was wearing that familiar shit-eating grin. Something in Sid loosened. It felt like a good sign, Geno being comfortable enough for bullshitting. “Not the goals. The, uh. You know. The pelican thing.” 

Geno heaved a sigh out his nose. “I tell you already, I don’t—”

“I just wanted to know,” Sid interrupted. “You never talk about it. You don’t—you don’t tell me about yourself.”

“It’s not important,” Geno said. 

Another day, Sid might have accepted that brush-off. “It _is_ important, because you’re my—because we’re dating.”

“So what, you have to know everything now? I get no secrets, no private, Sidney Crosby have to know all?”

“That’s—no. That’s not fair.”

“You want know everything, when I take piss, when—”

“Fucking _stop_ ,” Sid said. He couldn’t really see Geno’s expression anymore, but he could hear his scoff of disbelief just fine. “I want to know because I give a shit about you, okay? Because I—because you’re important to me, and I want to take care of you, and I wanted you to like it here, eh? I wanted you to have a good time.” Sid’s anger began to leak away, leaving him exhausted. He bent over his knees rather than try and search for Geno’s face in the dark. “I wanted you to come back next year, maybe.”

Geno made a sharp, bitten-off sound. Sid couldn’t afford to pay attention to it. “But one of us fucked it up, I guess. Or both of us. I don’t know. I just don’t want any more surprises.”

It was quiet for a little while. Something splashed, down by the lake. Geno cleared his throat. “No surprises. I don’t do anything like that, I promise.”

“I— _no_. What the fuck, Geno. I don’t want you to stop _being a pelican_. The fish thing kind of creeped me out, don’t get me wrong, but I can get over it.” Probably. “I just—don’t you trust me?” Immediately Sid wanted to suck the words back into his mouth. That was too needy.

“Sid,” Geno said, and Sid burned with humiliation. A hand brushed up and down Sid’s arm. “Sid I trust you most, okay? It’s just, it’s weird, be pelican. Weird shit we do. I don’t want you see, I think you get gross out. Maybe you don’t want to date anymore.”

Sid’s eyes had gotten a little watery. Good thing it was too dark for anyone to see. “That’s fucking bullshit. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I think you do today,” Geno said softly.

Sid sat very still. He felt a little shocky, like he’d taken a hit and couldn’t tell yet whether it hurt. He swallowed. “I was _surprised_ , because nobody fucking told me. _You_ didn’t tell me.” 

Geno heaved a sigh. “It’s better I tell you? Oh yes, sometime I like eat whole fish, feel them flop inside, feels very nice, sometimes I get off after. That makes it better?”

“Sometimes you get off after?” Sid repeated. His voice went a little squeaky towards the end. 

He felt the air shift as Geno pushed to his feet, even before he heard the scrape of the chair across the deck. “Geno, wait.” Sid reached out blindly and gripped Geno’s wrist. Geno went still. “Yes, that would have been better. You have to give me a chance, eh? I mean. I guess you don’t have to, if…” Sid let go of Geno.

“You so stupid,” Geno said, and then he knelt between Sid’s legs and kissed him on the mouth. After a moment, he retreated and said, “Sid, I—I love so much.”

Sid blinked at the outline of Geno’s face, so close his breath warmed Sid’s chin. “Yeah?” 

Geno waggled Sid’s knee. “Why you think I care so much, you think I’m weird? I don’t care about you, I don’t care about weird.”

When Sid exhaled, it felt like the first time in a long time. He found Geno’s shoulder and traced it to Geno’s neck. Geno’s chains bit into Sid’s fingers when he squeezed. “Me, too, okay? And not just the, you know, the human parts.”

Geno was quiet for a few moments, his hand heavy on Sid’s thigh. Finally, softly, “You don’t know other parts. Maybe you don’t like.”

Sid gave himself time to try and imagine something about Geno that was just too much for him to handle, even with time and effort. Too weird, too gross. Mostly the thought of not wanting Geno anymore made his chest hurt. “Maybe I won’t,” he admitted finally. He owed Geno that honesty. “But I want to try.”

Geno’s breath was soft and shaky. Slowly he leaned into Sid, wrapping Sid up in his arms, his face pressed to Sid’s neck. “Okay,” he mumbled. Sid rubbed Geno’s back. His heart pounded like he’d just finished a set in the weight room, and his limbs felt like water. “Talk tomorrow?” Geno said after a while.

“Sure,” Sid said. He pressed a kiss to Geno’s temple. “Sure, we can talk tomorrow.”

\--

Sid woke when the morning sun finally broke through the trees into his window around nine. He felt a little stiff everywhere, as if from the effort of so many feelings. Geno was still dead to the world. His mouth had fallen open, his face gone utterly slack. Sometimes, at times like this, Sid could recognize that it was objectively kind of a funny-looking face, with its droopy eyes and big, heavy nose. But it was Geno’s face, infinitely expressive and full of all his many strong feelings, and therefore it was pretty great as far as Sid was concerned.

Probably the pelican stuff would work out the same way, in the end. Or maybe the pelican stuff would be like how gnarly Geno let his toenails get sometimes, which was not Sid’s favorite, but he could put up with it anyway because the reward for putting up with it was Geno.

Either way they were going to be okay. Hopefully.

Sid was washing up his breakfast dishes when Geno finally appeared in the kitchen. “There’s potatoes and sausage,” Sid said. Geno mutely made his way to the stove, grumbling to himself. He was always like this first thing: lots of Russian muttered under his breath, eyes even sleepier than usual and deeply skeptical of the new day. 

Sid knew better than to try and talk to Geno while he ate. “Gonna hit the shower,” Sid said, and went upstairs to wash off the grime of his morning workout. When he came back down, he found Geno had moved out to the deck and settled into the chair that he seemed to have staked out as his own, these past two days. He held his phone loosely in one hand, not really looking at it.

“Hey,” Sid said, dropping into the next chair over.

“Hey.” Geno put the phone aside.

Now that they were here, Sid didn’t know how to start any of the conversations they should probably have. “Any plans for today? We could go into Halifax. Check out the harbor, go—”

“What you want to know?” Geno asked.

It took Sid a moment or two to track. “What—what do you want to tell me?”

Geno snorted. Probably he rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses, too. “I don’t want,” he said, and Sid felt some of that optimism from earlier in the morning start to leak away. Then Geno heaved a sigh. “I don’t like talk about.”

“I know,” Sid said cautiously.

“I say you last night I talk, but it’s like, what if I ask you what it’s like be human? What you say?”

Sid laughed, startled. “I don’t know.”

“You ask me, I like swim because pelican? I like Miami and warm because pelican? Sushi? Fishing? I don’t know. It’s just me, you know? Maybe some of it’s because I’m—” He paused here and wrinkled his nose. “Wildling?” 

It occurred to Sid that he’d never heard Geno use the term before. He supposed there was some other, better word in Russian.

Geno shrugged his discomfort away. “I don’t know what I’m like, if I don’t have pelicans. Maybe I’m just same.”

“Well, I mean, you do have the feathers, and the—the red marks around your throat?” Sid had first noticed them one morning in bed, a week or so after he first slept with Geno: red markings so bright they looked like tattoos or some kind of stain. When Sid had mentioned it to Geno, Geno had blushed to the roots of his hair and refused to discuss them. They faded in and out, and Sid had kind of just gotten used to them. He brushed them aside as another one of those details of Geno’s existence that must not matter too much.

Sid knew what they were now, though, thanks to last night’s Wikipedia dive. They were breeding markings. Pelicans got them in breeding season, to show off to their mate. Sid wasn’t entirely sure what that meant in the context of someone only partially pelican and in a gay relationship, but it felt like it meant something.

And now Geno was blushing again. “It’s not matter. I never let them stay. Feathers or anything, I make go away, you don’t have to see.”

Geno had said things like that before, casually, like a joke. Sid said carefully, “Do you want to make them go away?”

“Of course,” Geno said, scoffing.

“Why?”

Geno looked at him like he was nuts. “Why I need feathers for hockey? Or go grocery store, or go to club—why I want them?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d just like them. Like you’d feel more—you, or something.” Sid slouched further down in his deck chair and wished his Gatorade were a beer. This shit was so far out of his league.

Geno didn’t respond to that. When Sid looked over, Geno was frowning at his hands. “I don’t like be pelican,” Geno said finally.

“You—you don’t?”

Geno shrugged. “It’s make stuff harder, everyone thinks so weird, guys chirp me. You get upset. It’s better I’m not.”

“Geno—” Sid began, though fuck knew what he was going to say.

“When I score goal, then I feel like me.” Geno lifted his gaze to meet Sid’s. “Skate into zone with puck, pass to you and Phil and Tanger on power play, bump fists on the bench after score. Or when you fuck me,” he added innocently, like Sid’s brain didn’t still [skip a gear] every time Geno said something like that. “When I see Mama and Papa cheer for me. That’s me. Feathers aren’t me, they just…” He paused, frustrated.

“Bonus?” Sid offered. “Extra?”

“Extra,” Geno agreed.

Sid chugged some Gatorade while he let that thought settle. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide shit from me,” he said finally.

“Even it’s not important?”

“If it weren’t important, you wouldn’t care about hiding it. Like the fish.” Yeah, Sid was still not over the fish. “You must be really into that, eh?”

Geno folded his hands over his stomach. “Feels nice. Full and satisfy, like everything good, you know? Everything in world is all right.”

Sid could almost see that, if he squinted just right. During the year, every guy on the team was hungry all the fucking time. There was definitely something to be said for taking a nap on a full stomach. Still. “You want the fish to be alive, though.”

Geno colored a little. “Feels nice,” he repeated. He snuck a glance at Sid from the corner of his eye, like he was waiting for another round of commentary on that, but Sid kept his mouth shut this time. Finally Geno heaved a sigh. “Like, you know you get in fight, get in someone’s face, it’s big rush? You feel like most big guy on ice, can fight anybody.”

“Huh,” Sid said. “Like you’re a—successful hunter? Or fisherman, I guess?” Maybe Sid shouldn’t say it like that, like Geno was an animal.

Geno just shrugged. “Yeah. Little bit like that.”

Sid contemplated that for a while. Geno didn’t fidget or seem inclined to interrupt him; he took in the view, his hands still folded at his waist. Birds were chirping. It was going to be a beautiful day.

“Okay,” Sid said.

“Okay what?” Geno shifted a little further down in his deck chair. “Okay I do thing is not your business, you never see?”

That was pretty rich, considering he’d promised last night to never do it again if it’d keep Sid from freaking out. It was progress, probably. “Well, yeah,” Sid said. “Is there, uh. Is there anything else I should know? Do you lay eggs?” He’d started the sentence as a joke and then almost clammed up halfway through, because what if Geno did?

But Geno just laughed at him. “I’m _man_ pelican, Sid! Why I lay eggs?”

“Okay, okay. That’s fair.” Sid decided to leave the question of pelican women for another time. “Or like, a nest?” Geno was shaking his head, but Sid pressed on. “When did you know about the pelican thing? Like, were you a little kid?”

Geno got a fond, faraway look—not the look of someone who really hated being a pelican. Maybe Geno only hated parts of being a pelican. Or maybe he had never noticed there were parts he didn’t hate. “It’s when I swim at lake, my feet like pelican feet. Like—” He spread his fingers and flapped his hand, and Sid got the gist. Webbing. “I’m eight years old. My parents, they think I’m duck, you know? Why I’m pelican? We don’t even live near ocean.”

“Did you ever find out why?” Sid asked. 

Geno hadn’t. He told Sid other parts of his childhood, though, pieces Sid had never heard—the time he let his feathers grow out for weeks and then broke his leg jumping from the roof, convinced he’d fly. The way he craved fish in his teens every time he hit a growth spurt. How he’d loved LA, his first couple of weeks in the US, and how he almost wished he could stay there and play with the Kings.

“But Miami better,” Geno added, as if that would soothe Sid’s feelings. The _Kings_ , what the fuck.

It was like the floodgates had opened at last. Sid didn’t know quite what had made the difference, what he’d said that freed Geno to share all this shit that Sid was positive no one else on the Pens had ever heard, except probably Gonch. Sid was still aching from Geno’s admission the night before, that he had thought Sid was going to break up with him over the fish thing. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done between then and now to earn this trust.

They stories continued as they wandered back inside, and in Sid’s car on the way to Halifax. Geno’s reminiscing only slowed to a trickle as the sea came into sight and then stopped as Sid parked near the wharf. “You think we’ll see any?” Sid asked as they descended the steps to the boardwalk.

“Not today,” Geno said, with a finality Sid couldn’t help but wonder about.

Geno was right about pelicans, but they did see plenty of gulls. They walked the boardwalk and got ice cream and posed for a few photographs, and they returned to the car foot-weary and lightly sunburnt. 

Sid fucked Geno that night, slow and deliberate and teasing, until Geno cussed him out in a stready stream of Russian that rose and fell with each thrust. When they finally collapsed side-by-side, they were both damp with sweat, and Geno’s lashes looked a little wet.

Afterward, Sid lay on his back and listened to chorus of frogs outside his window, and he thought about what Geno had said, about all being right with the world.

\--

They didn’t talk about any of it again, the next few days. They spent a day with Taylor and her friend Jess, driving up the coast. They ate dinner with Sid’s parents. They worked out with Mackinnon a few times, cooked out on the deck a lot, and tried a bunch of things in bed that Sid had always been hesitant to experiment with during the season. Like. A bunch of things.

Sid found himself watching Geno more now as he ate. He felt kind of creepy about it, especially the couple of times Geno caught him looking and raised his eyebrows.

Finally, on the way home from lunch in Halifax, Geno said, “We go fish tonight?” 

“Do you want to?” Sid asked, startled.

Geno hummed to himself. “I think yes.”

A confused, unfamiliar excitement fluttered in Sid’s stomach. It stayed there all through Halifax, although Sid got distracted for a while when they stopped at the grocery store for dinner supplies. He remembered again, though, as he turned onto the dirt road to his house. “Are you sure you want to go fishing?” he asked. 

Geno lifted his chin. “You say me, visit Canada, all we do whole visit is only sex and fish. Can’t only have sex, Sid. Sometimes it’s little bit boring.”

Sid’s sputter was mostly for show. Geno’s deadpan turned smug behind his aviators. Sid would suffer being the butt of a hundred jokes if it’d keep Geno looking like he did now, relaxed and comfortable with his place in the world.

They at dinner early that evening, out on the deck. The meal started with talk about Cup day plans—Geno had settled on late August, not long before training camp, and Sid’s was scheduled in time for his hockey school—and ended with them both lost in their phones. Geno had hooked his ankle over Sid’s at some point, proprietary as always. Sid didn’t try to move it.

There were a couple of hours of daylight left by the time Sid and Geno made their way back to the dock, gear in hand. That unsettled excitement returned as Sid baited his hook. Geno seemed to feel it, too: he mumbled to himself or to his rod or to the fish, too low and probably too Russian for Sid to make out the words.

Sid’s nerves settled after a while though, aided by the fact that they were catching no fish. Geno said it was because Sid’s flies were bad and his bait was old. “The bait’s still alive, asshole,” Sid said. 

Geno got bored and wandered up to the house, returning with a cold one for each of them. It was just as Sid reached the bottom of his that his line jerked. “See, just needed some patience,” Sid said.

“Yes, yes, everybody know, Sidney Crosby so patient,” Geno said, with ill grace.

Sid’s triumph was dampened somewhat by the size of his catch: a juvenile perch, less than a pound. It had plenty of fight, though, as it flopped and swung on the end of his line. He gripped it carefully to work the hook out of its mouth. 

“Too small, right?” Geno said. “Can’t keep.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. There wasn’t nearly enough meat on the fish to justify trying to clean it. Any other day, Sid would have thrown it back without a thought. This time, though, he had Geno standing nearby and looking mournfully at either him or the fish—the exact direction of Geno’s gaze hidden behind his sunglasses. The air was charged with expectation. 

Sid took a deep breath, decided that just this once he didn’t give a fuck about sustainable fishing, and held the fish out to Geno. Geno peered at it a moment and then, cautiously, he reached out and took the fish with both hands. “You sure?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t need watch.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

Slowly Geno shook his head. “But maybe it’s too weird.”

“I’m not going to freak out this time,” Sid promised. He’d make it true by sheer will, if he had to.

Geno bit his lip, considering that a moment longer. Then he slid his sunglasses off with one hand and set them aside. He snuck one more glance at Sid. Then he tipped his head back. 

Sid had never seen anything quite like what happened to Geno’s face then. It was a little stomach-turning, honestly, how his jaw lengthened like it was made of putty. It was like a horror movie that had skimped pretty hard on the special effects budget. But when the process was over, Geno had a beak. He gaped it open, impossibly wide, and tossed the fish in. One shake of his head, another, and then he swallowed. Sid watched the fish travel down Geno’s throat.

Geno shook his head sharply a couple more times, and then he looked like himself again: just Geno. Human. For a moment he looked nothing but pleased with himself, before he seemed to remember Sid was there. He gave Sid a hard look. “You okay?”

Sid shook himself out of his daze. “Yeah? I think so, yeah. Are you?”

That smug satisfaction returned. “Yes, good.” Geno patted his stomach. 

“Can I…?” Sid approached with caution. Geno eyed him uncertainly, but he held still while Sid pressed his palm just below Geno’s ribs. The fish flailed weakly under Geno’s skin, and for a moment Sid felt dizzy, a little nauseous. But Sid took a few deep breaths, swallowed a couple of times, and the moment passed. “Feels good, eh?”

Geno gave him a cautious smile. “Very nice.”

 _Nice_ was still a bizarre description, in Sid’s opinion, but then he wasn’t a pelican, so what did he know. “Real nice?” he asked, brushing his knuckles against the fly of Geno’s shorts. He was disappointed, though. Geno felt exactly as interested in having swallowed a middling-sized perch as—well, as interested as Sid was.

Or slightly less, even. Sid elected not to think about that, just now.

“Too small,” Geno said, with a hint of apology. “Just snack.”

“Well, we’ll have to catch a bigger one, then,” Sid said. He ignored Geno’s look of surprise. Geno should know Sid better by now: he didn’t go halfway. Play the full two hundred feet or go home.

They more or less gave up the pretense that this was an ordinary, relaxing evening of fishing at the lake. All else aside, it was the second evening of fishing at the lake Sid had ever spent with Geno, but also Sid was pretty fucking determined to catch Geno something really worth eating. And after a half-hour or so of sneaking bemused looks at Sid from the corner of his eye, Geno sat back in a lawn chair with another beer and let Sid have at it. 

“I thought you wanted to be the victorious fisherman,” Sid said.

“You say, not me,” Geno said, unconcerned. “You want so much, I let you do. I know you don’t disappoint.”

He said this casually, not even looking at Sid, which meant there was about a seventy percent chance that the challenge he’d just thrown out there, pushing every single one of Sid’s buttons, was completely deliberate. Either way, Sid was going to absolutely fucking not going to let him be disappointed.

It took another hour and some experimentation with spoons and then a jig before Sid’s rod bent with real purpose. This was no juvenile perch. Whatever had taken the jig was big or a real fighter or both. “The net,” Sid said. Geno scrambled to his feet—a little prematurely, it turned out. It took Sid ten more minutes to finally reel in his catch. He lifted it out of the water just high enough for Geno to net.

“I tell you, not disappoint,” Geno said, peering into the net.

It was a smallmouth bass, maybe five pounds, although it was hard to tell with the way it was flopping around in the net. A very respectable size, at any rate—by far the biggest Sid had caught this year. Bigger than the one Geno had eaten a few days, Sid realized with a deep and unexpected satisfaction. “Do you just want it now?”

Geno hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe bring to house. More private.” He gave Sid a sly sideways look that allowed only one interpretation. 

Sid felt himself perk up a little, a conditioned response to that expression, and right this moment he wasn’t even weirded out about it. “Up to the house,” he agreed. 

They dehooked the bass, strung a line through it, and left it thrashing in the lake while they cleaned up the rest of the gear. There was never any question of waiting out the evening or trying to catch anything else. Finally they trekked up the house with the tackle box, the empty beer bottles, and the bass, still thrashing. “On deck,” Geno suggested. “Don’t get house wet. Or shirt.” He moved to pull his t-shirt off.

So on the deck, screened by maples from any but the most determined eyes, Sid waited with the fish while Geno once again changed into something neither human nor fowl. It seemed to take him longer this time, the transformation going further. Geno’s eyes slid sideways on his head, which began to sprout feathers. Sid wanted to ask what was different, but he doubted Geno could form words, the way his mouth was shaped now. Instead, when it seemed like Geno was finished, Sid handed the bass over. Geno gripped it with both hands, placed it carefully over his open beak, and let go.

The bass fought Geno like it’d fought the hook. Geno opened his beak and closed it again, snapped his head back, over and over, trying to angle the fish just right. This wasn’t like the perch, a couple of swallows and it was gone. Sid could see Geno’s pouch now, expanding under his beak and along his throat. The fish thrashed in it, the imprint of its tail sometimes easily visible against the skin.

Sid didn’t know how long it took for Geno to swallow the fish. It felt like hours; it might have been only five or ten minutes. But finally Geno snapped his beak one last time, and the fish progressed inevitably down his throat. 

Geno shook his head a few more times, and the transformation with it, until he looked—well, mostly human again, his skull the correct size and shape, his eyes back where they belonged. Still a bit feathery. 

He looked normal, basically, except for how his stomach bowed out with five pounds of angry smallmouth bass. 

“How—” Sid began. His voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “How long does it take?”

Geno waggled his hand. “Couple minutes,” he rasped. “Depend.” He grunted and pressed his palm against his bare stomach, swollen and jumpy with fish. He looked a little pained, never mind all that shit about this being satisfying and nice.

“Do you want me to—?” Sid edged forward and laid his palm next to Geno’s. Yep, the fish was definitely still moving. “We could sit down.”

“Yes,” Geno said, sounding a little out of breath.

They ended up just sitting on the wooden steps, because it was easy to sit side-by-side there, where Sid could reach over and massage Geno’s stomach. Geno hunched over his belly, as if to lessen the pressure, but it couldn’t have done much good, because, well. Five pounds of fish. 

The fish stopped moving after a little while, and Geno’s breaths began to come a little easier. He straightened up a little and looked fondly down at Sid’s hand. He patted it gently. “See, I tell you. Very nice.”

“It looked pretty uncomfortable.”

“But now it’s feel good,” Geno said. He opened his mouth wide and worked his jaw a couple of times. Then he smoothed his hand over his distended stomach and said, “Maybe we go upstairs now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” Geno said, his gaze half-lidded and full of promise. 

Sid couldn’t help staring as he followed Geno inside and up the stairs to the bedroom. Every time Geno turned a little bit, Sid caught another glimpse of his bizarre, distorted profile. Often Geno had his hand on the swell, and that did weird things to _Sid’s_ stomach, things he didn’t know quite what to do with.

Inside the bedroom door, Geno cast a glance back at Sid, suddenly looking uncertain. “What you want to do?” Geno asked.

“I mean, whatever you want. Within reason,” Sid hastily added, in case Geno got ideas. Carte blanche was never a good idea around Geno.

But Geno didn’t seem inclined to take advantage today. Slowly he stripped out of his socks and shorts and briefs, until he was bare, all his residual weirdness on display. There were some decent-sized feathers sprouting up and down his legs, Sid noticed, in amongst the dark hairs. 

Geno hadn’t really answered. “What do you like?” Sid asked. “I mean when you’re—” Digesting? “—like this.”

“Maybe just touch?” Geno said. “See what happen.”

On the bed, Sid decided. He got Geno arranged with his back to the headboard with pillows for cushioning. Then Sid settled in next to him and began massaging the fishy lump again. Geno groaned, smiling a little, and closed his eyes.

Sid was still astonished how close the bass was to Geno’s surface. Sid could trace some of the bumps with his fingers—or maybe that was the perch, which Geno had only swallowed a couple of hours ago, after all.

Geno looked good like this: naked and smug, warm and smiling under Sid’s hand. Full and satisfied with the fish Sid had caught for him. Sid flashed back to Geno’s stumbling explanation, the _big rush_ , and felt a sudden, possessive flush of pride. 

Geno groaned again, deeper. He pushed up a little into Sid’s hand, and Sid’s face went hot. He breathed through the sudden arousal and rubbed along Geno’s side, around his stomach and then underneath to that softness below the navel that Geno never managed to shake. Geno began to squirm under Sid’s touch. “Go low,” Geno muttered.

Sid dropped his hand a little lower, and there was Geno’s dick, halfway to ready. “Oh yeah?”

“I tell you,” Geno said, opening his eyes at last. “It’s okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

Geno squinted at Sid. Sid’s flush must have tipped him off, or maybe how Sid’s voice had cracked, because Geno started to grin. Looking supremely satisfied with himself, Sid, and the world, Geno scooted a little farther down the bed. “Keep go,” he said, shimmying his hips a bit: a clear invitation. 

So Sid kept stroking Geno’s stomach and occasionally his dick, when Geno complained of neglect. Geno felt so good underneath his touch, so responsive, that it was a shock every time Sid’s knuckles bumped up against Geno unexpectedly and he remembered how weird all this was.

The ratio of dick-touching to belly-touching must have been too low, because Geno started cursing Sid out under his breath. There was nothing stopping Geno from just taking himself in hand and finishing himself off, and yet he only clutched the bedsheets and whined low in his throat every time Sid brushed against his dick. Geno rarely had the patience for anything like this. It was pretty intoxicating.

“Si-id,” Geno said finally, a drawn-out whine. That was when Sid began to work Geno for real. It took all of thirty seconds before Geno was spurting onto Sid’s hand and his own stomach. It was then, while Geno was still heaving in shallow, choked-off breaths, that Sid realized how dizzyingly hard he was. He spit in his hand and stroked himself. 

It didn’t take him long, either. Afterward he collapsed on his back next to Geno. He should get up soon probably, get them both cleaned off. Instead he lay there and listened to Geno’s breathing even out. 

“It’s good?” Geno asked sleepily.

“Yeah, it was good.”

“Not too weird?”

Sid tried to think about that. He was caught in the afterglow, barely staying afloat. He was tired, too, and a little sore—maybe from the stress of watching Geno work that fish down his throat. He’d held himself pretty tightly through that.

But Geno had asked him a question. Sid wanted to answer it as honestly as he could. “Pretty weird,” he said finally. “But not bad.”

“No?”

“No,” Sid said, as firmly as he could muster.

“You take good care,” Geno said. He reached over to pat Sid’s hand. 

Sid snorted, feeling suddenly more awake. “Not really.”

“You do. You want take care. Listen me, catch me fish, rub me when I’m too full, can’t move. Get me off.”

Okay, that list sounded pretty okay. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Geno heaved a sigh. “Okay, now we sleep. I have so much for digest.”

Sid rolled his gaze over to Geno, stomach still heavy and distended. Maybe he wouldn’t have to feed Geno tomorrow.

It was Sid’s last waking thought.

\--

Sid woke first the next morning, sticky and full of regrets about that cleaning-off he’d never gotten around to the night before. Geno had pulled the sheet up during the night, but last night’s dinner was still readily apparent under the drape of the cloth. Sid wondered if he could get Geno off again just from rubbing his stomach, or if that was a once-per-meal kind of thing.

Sid got up and got his shower at last. Then he went down to investigate breakfast. 

Geno stumbled in an hour later. He’d pulled on sweatpants. Now, looking at Geno in profile, Sid wondered if the fish hadn’t relocated a little. Well, Sid supposed it had to, sooner or later. He walked up and kissed Geno’s morning breath and half-awake face. “I can put on water for tea, if you want.”

“Mm,” Geno said. It sounded like an approving sound, so Sid went and put the kettle on the burner. It was new—he’d never seen a need for one before this week.

“How you feeling?”

Geno moaned appreciatively. “So good.”

Sid felt the moan in his belly, melting into a familiar, pleasant heat. He gave Geno another look-over, and that was when he noticed. “Hey, you’ve got feathers.”

Self-consciously Geno stroked the mottled brown feathers lying flat along the sides and back of his neck. “I think, maybe let stay there, little while. Maybe grow little bit more.” He rubbed at his breastbone, not looking at Sid anymore.

Sid edged closer. Geno held perfectly still as Sid peered at the feathers. Already they were the longest Sid had ever seen on Geno. Cautiously, Sid reached up and stroked one. It was smooth and soft, completely feather-like. “Sounds good,” Sid said.

“You think?”

Sid shouldered under Geno’s arm and pressed carefully into his side. Geno’s arm fell around his shoulders. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Geno squeezed a little tighter. Sid leaned in and waited for the kettle to whistle.

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> Look, Geno just [REALLY LIKES fishing](http://snickfic.tumblr.com/post/168197054080/kerilikeshockeyboys-discussion-from-the-marek).


End file.
